AlGaN-Based Deep Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diodes with Thermally Oxidized Al x Ga2-x O3 Sidewalls.

AlGaN and GaN sidewalls were turned into Al x Ga2-x O3 and Ga2O3, respectively, by thermal oxidation to improve the optoelectrical characteristics of deep ultraviolet (DUV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The thermally oxidized Ga2O3 is a single crystal with nanosized voids homogenously distributed inside the layer. Two oxidized Al x Ga2-x O3 layers were observed on the sidewall of the AlGaN layer in transmission electron microscopy images. The first oxidized Al x Ga2-x O3 layer is a single crystal, while the second oxidized Al x Ga2-xO3 layer is a single crystal with numerous nanosized voids inside. The composition of Al in the first oxidized Al x Ga2-x O3 layer is higher than that in the second one. The thermal oxidation at high temperature degrades the quality of the p-GaN layer and increases the forward voltage from 8.18 to 11.36 V. The thermally oxidized Al x Ga2-x O3 sidewall greatly enhances the light extraction efficiency of the lateral light of the DUV LEDs by combined mechanisms of holey structure, graded refractive index, high transparency, and tensile stress. Consequently, the light output power of the DUV LEDs increases from 0.69 to 0.88 mW by introducing a 420 nm thick Al x Ga2-x O3 sidewall oxidized at 900 °C, in which the enhancement of light output power can reach 27.5%.

Highly electrostatically-induced detection selectivity and sensitivity for a colloidal biosensor made of chitosan nanoparticle decorated with a few bare-surfaced gold nanorods.

Metallic nanoparticles have been utilized as an analytical tool to detecting a wide variety of organic analytes. Among them, gold nanoparticles demonstrating outstanding surface plasmonic resonance property have been well recognized and received wide attention for plasmon-based sensing applications. However, in literature, gold-based nanosensor has to be integrated with specific "ligand" molecule in order to gain molecular recognition ability. However, "ligand" molecules, included proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, etc. are expensive and vulnerable to environmental change, in the meantime, anchoring procedure of the "ligand" molecules to gold surface may be cost-ineffective and endangered to the ligand's activity, making a final analytic probe less reliable and risk in production capability. Here, we develop a new approach by designing a colloid-type sensor using a few "bare" Au nanorods deposited on the surface of a colloidal chitosan carrier. By tuning the solution pH, the resulting colloidal nanoprobe is capable of detecting proteins, i.e., human serum albumin and lysozyme, with high specificity and sensitivity. This new approach allows a new type of the molecular probes to be well manipulated to monitor important biomolecules for medical detection, diagnosis, and bioengineering applications.

Nonstoichiometric Titanium Oxides via Pulsed Laser Ablation in Water.

Titanium oxide compounds TiO,Ti2O3, and TiO2 with a considerable extent of nonstoichiometry were fabricated by pulsed laser ablation in water and characterized by X-ray/electron diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The titanium oxides were found to occur as nanoparticle aggregates with a predominant 3+ charge and amorphous microtubes when fabricated under an average power density of ca. 1 × 108W/cm2 and 1011W/cm2, respectively followed by dwelling in water. The crystalline colloidal particles have a relatively high content of Ti2+ and hence a lower minimum band gap of 3.4 eV in comparison with 5.2 eV for the amorphous state. The protonation on both crystalline and amorphous phase caused defects, mainly titanium rather than oxygen vacancies and charge and/or volume-compensating defects. The hydrophilic nature and presumably varied extent of undercoordination at the free surface of the amorphous lamellae accounts for their rolling as tubes at water/air and water/glass interfaces. The nonstoichiometric titania thus fabricated have potential optoelectronic and catalytic applications in UV-visible range and shed light on the Ti charge and phase behavior of titania-water binary in natural shock occurrence.

Structural characterization of room-temperature synthesized nano-sized beta-tricalcium phosphate.

A simple route for synthesizing nano-sized beta-tricalcium phosphate (beta-TCP) at room temperature has been developed in methanol solvent. The phase evolution from CaHPO4, intermediate amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) phases (including ACP1 and ACP2 with different structures) to final beta-TCP with increasing aging time was observed. The formation of beta-TCP phase is favored due to the incorporation of carbonate which can suppress the transformation of ACP1 phase. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy image along [1-100] zone axis of beta-TCP reveals two types of lattice fringes (straight and wavy fringes) in beta-TCP structure due to structural imperfection. Furthermore, the observations of abnormal diffraction intensity and superlattice diffraction in selected-area diffraction patterns further confirm the chemical order-disorder characteristics in beta-TCP structure and can be used to elucidate the resorbability of beta-TCP in either in vivo or in vitro environment due to the imperfection in beta-TCP crystal.

Structural characterization of nano-sized calcium deficient apatite powders.

Nano-sized calcium-deficient apatitic (CDHA) crystals with Ca/P ratios from 1.5 to 1.67 were synthesized using wet chemical method and of needle-like shape with 5-10 nm in diameter and 40-50 nm in length was observed. The structural environment of the Ca atoms in all the CDHA nano-crystals has been investigated using EXAFS, XANES and EELS. The results reveal that a maximum Fourier transform amplitude occurs at the apatite with a Ca/P ratio of 1.67 and the structural disorder increase following the sequence of 1.67>1.5>1.6>1.55. A similar phenomenon is also observed in both K-edge XANES and L(2,3)-edge ELNES in the Ca atom. The structural analysis further demonstrates that different chemical and biological properties among these CDHA nano-crystals with Ca/P ratio from 1.5 to 1.67 are primarily due to the effect of stoichiometry and non-stoichiometry as compared to the structural order-disorder.